Faith of the Church

My Reservations on Christmas Caroling

by E. S. John, Australia

'The present practice of caroling came into vogue after the reformation by the
protestant movements. My humble request to the Orthodox churches of the modern
period is that we must not let our time-honored traditions to be drowned in the
protestant traditions imported. If everybody wants to have caroling which
involves acts of pleasures before Christmas, what is the point in having a
'Lent' prior to Christmas?

If the Bride has any defilement, the Groom won't take her into the bridal
chamber. The bridal chamber is the paradise that was evicted by throwing out Eve
and Adam in the beginning of history. If eating the forbidden fruit was the
defilement there, there are many more defilements that have infected the Bride
now, though she should have been 'holy, catholic, apostolic and one (church)'.

The religious Caroling was spiritual once before, but is now prone to many atheistic,
agnostic and commercial interests. Making Christmas lamps by ourselves and
conveying Christmas messages had meaningful religious values, but today it is
run purely on business interests and pagan elements.

When Christmas is celebrated
as the birth of Santa clause and drunken Christmas announcements by irreligious
clubs, local and regional celebrations of extravagances on a commercial agenda,
the name of God is polluted and denigrated everywhere. It sounds like the Roman
census that brought thousands of people into the Jerusalem city that had no place
for Jesus to hide His head except in the manger together with the starving
animals that were squeezed into it for want of space. Today's Christmas
celebration of extravaganzas that included Christmas trees which hides costly
gifts, mass manufactured Christmas trees and stars hanging everywhere under the
limelight of electrical gymnastics, fireworks etc are nothing but the portrayal
of our trading profligacy.

Caroling has become a pagan ritual of money
collection and consuming bottles of liquor that sends many on the other side of
the grave untimely and miserably. Such celebrations are the fierce iron nails
that are struck into the body of Christ. Caroling with self-made lamps and
conveying messages to the spiritually slumbered and waiting for a spiritually
awakening good news resemble the angels' messages received to the shepherds who
minded the lambs for sacrifice for the Jerusalem Temple and the wise men who
traversed the east for presenting the centuries old gifts preserved and handed
down by Adam through the ages for the Eternal Lamb who provide us eternal
salvation. Many such ritual and conventional traditions have lost their
spiritual values that the church needs to be resuscitated by curtailing all the
pagan celebrations that cost money for the poor and hard-working members of the
church. The conversion of the fasting season of Christmas as a feasting melee of
self-righteousness and extravaganza is a sign of the Lamb's imminent coming.
This celebration syndrome that sends Jesus into exile, like the Jerusalem, City of
His birth, brings punishments and wrath at the judgement time.

The right time to convey house to house message is during the Christmas night.